"Why beauty matters" by Roger Scruton

[Daimonion]

I wonder how you, as people closely related to music, would like the movie linked to below:

http://rclvideolibrary.com/2012/12/08/why-beauty-matters/

Also, if I may, it would be great if anybody helped me with identifying the tune starting at 50 minutes and 50 seconds.

All the best,

Daimonion

[some guy]

This is all you need to know about it:

"In the 20th century, Scruton argues, art, architecture and music turned their backs on beauty, making a cult of ugliness and leading us into a spiritual desert."

Scruton, Hurwitz, Goodall, Asia, Reilly, Schaeffer, Pleasants, fully 90 percent of all who post to classical music threads--it's a constant barrage of hatred directed towards the unmistakably beautiful beauties of the twentieth century.

It is the blatant and arrogant privileging of a certain narrow band of beauty--and not even beauty always; often mere prettiness--over all other beauties. Make me want to puke my guts out, I can tell ya. And that is not a pretty sight!

[xochitl]

i was willing to listen to the guy until he started ranting about music and "my girls" by animal collective started playing in the background...that song [and album] is one of the most sincerely beautiful things created in a while

but he has some interesting points. 

[TheGSMoeller]

"I will tell you why beauty matters as you view images of myself walking through fields and leaning against my favorite wooden chair."

I'm not as enthiusiastic about contemporary art as I am other genres or periods, but I would never classify it as snobbery nor dismiss it as anything other than art. And I had a difficult being convince this film wasn't subjective.
On the other hand, well made film with quality camera work and music, I just can't agree with his premise.

[Karl Henning]

I think we all agree that beauty "matters." He fails to understand that dissonance is beauty, too.

[Cato]

As far as the music at 50:50 is concerned, I do not recognize it, but an Oriental website claims it comes from the soundtrack of a short (15 minutes) experimental film called Annotations whose score was composed by a Scotsman named Colin Broom.

I could not find the soundtrack online.

[Daimonion]

Hello,

  By myself I would not try to assess Scruton's opinion about contemporary music for the simple reason that I know virtually nothing about it. What I can say, however, is that I share many of his tastes and distates such as a taste for polyphony and counterpoint and distaste for modernism in architecture and so called postmodern criticism. Also I do share his dislike (modestly speaking) for many examples of modern art that he shows in the movie.

  Thank you very much for the reference to Colin Broom. It helped me to find the following website with the full soundtrack listining:

http://blog.wenxuecity.com/blogarticle.php?date=201111&postID=9750

All the best,

Daimonion

P.S. I was once visiting Oxford and enjoying all the historical buildings around. And then I saw this:



It was kind of a shock for me;-)

[Mandryka]

Scruton's main strength in my opinion is in exegesis, his little book on Kant is a useful introduction to Kant. You can see that flair in this programme in his discussion of Plato, which I thought was excellent.

Elsewhere he's very hard to follow. He seems to want to say that the job of art is to take the banal and make it appear transcendent, and then that Tracy Emin and Jeff Koons don't do this so they're bad artists. But there's not much by way of clear argument for either of the premises. I knew Roger Scruton slightly when I was a student, I went to a class he gave at Oxford. He  had reactionary conservative tendencies then, but it's sad to see that he's sunk to the depths of this programme.

[not edward]

I don't know--Scruton on aesthetics always seems to me like an intellectual version of the Major from Fawlty Towers.

[The new erato]

I don't know--Scruton on aesthetics always seems to me like an intellectual version of the Major from Fawlty Towers.

[Karl Henning]

Hello,

  By myself I would not try to assess Scruton's opinion about contemporary music for the simple reason that I know virtually nothing about it. What I can say, however, is that I share many of his tastes and distastes such as a taste for polyphony and counterpoint and distaste for modernism in architecture and so called postmodern criticism. Also I do share his dislike (modestly speaking) for many examples of modern art that he shows in the movie.

Welcome to GMG, BTW, Daimonion!

Even though this is ground which has been covered before here on the forum, I enjoy fresh steps-through now and again.  You would have no way of knowing, of course, but Scruton has been used as an aesthetic cudgel on GMG before -- and by people less cultured than yourself ; )

Any of us can point to pieces of modern architecture and modern visual art which are eyesores, no question. But there has been genuinely beautiful work in modern style, as well.  As with practically any stylistic trend in the history of art, there are instances of excellent application, and instances of inferior application.  It is an error to dismiss a style on the basis of the worst examples.

Another error is (even if for discussion we allow the hand-wringing over architecture and visual art) to blandly apply that dismissal to music, as well.  My part (and that of others) in this thread earlier was simply to indicate that a great many of us respond to the "dissonant" dialects in the language of music with intuitive appreciation for its innate beauty. Any flatline equation of dissonance = ugliness in such a discussion is, well, boneheaded:  it is un-subtle, uninformed, and suggests a lack of cultivation.  And surely no discussion on the question of aesthetics should be content with under-cultivation.

[Florestan]

He's prone to sweeping generalizations but at least about urban architecture he's almost spot on: "the biggest crime against beauty ever committed", and I say almost because this is an understatement. 

[Karl Henning]

He's prone to sweeping generalizations but at least about urban architecture he's almost spot on: "the biggest crime against beauty ever committed", and I say almost because this is an understatement. 

Ah, welcome to Boston's City Hall:

[Karl Henning]

Actually, in that shot it looks better than when you're standing there on the plaza ; )

[Florestan]

Actually, in that shot it looks better than when you're standing there on the plaza ; )

Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate!

What happened to the old one?

[The new erato]

He's prone to sweeping generalizations but at least about urban architecture he's almost spot on: "the biggest crime against beauty ever committed", and I say almost because this is an understatement. 

And the problem with architecture is that the results are very visible, affects very many people, and the results will last for lifetimes. Music, books, visual arts are epheremal in comparison.

[Florestan]

And the problem with architecture is that the results are very visible, affects very many people, and the results will last for lifetimes. Music, books, visual arts are epheremal in comparison.

Exactly.

[Karl Henning]

Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate!

What happened to the old one?

No idea; that has been City Hall for as long as we have resided in Massachusetts.

[Florestan]

No idea; that has been City Hall for as long as we have resided in Massachusetts.

Boston's old city hall, ca. 1865

With the 1969 move to the current Boston City Hall, Old City Hall was converted over the next two years to serve other functions–an early and successful example of adaptive reuse. Boston based architecture firm Finegold Alexander + Associates Inc completed the adaptive use and renovation.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1970.[2][1] It now houses a number of businesses, organizations, and a Ruth's Chris Steak House, though its most famous tenant, the upscale French restaurant Maison Robert, closed in 2004.

[Karl Henning]

I should have known, Andrei! For that building still stands, on School Street.  In fact, I shall walk past that building on my way to the recital at King's Chapel this Tuesday coming.